Kouta (Elfen Lied)
Kouta is the love interest of Lucy/Nyu in the anime and manga series Elfen Lied. He arrives in Kanagawa Prefecture to attend college, having previously arranged to stay with his cousin Yuka while at school. Kouta enters the story when Yuka's family gives him a closed-down restaurant, the Kaeda House, as long as he maintains it, and begins living there with Yuka while going to a university. One day, he and Yuka find an injured and naked Lucy, who now has a split personality due to a wound in her head. They name the childish and amnesiac personality Nyu, since that's the only thing she can say. Kouta actually first met Lucy in his childhood while his family was visiting Yuka's for the summer. When he goes to the mountain to draw, Lucy had just run away from the orphanage where she killed 4 children (her first murders). He finds her horns fascinating and gives her a hat to cover them up while in public. He asks her if they could be friends and spends time with her. When she asks him about the gender of the cousin he's taking to the summer festival, he lies to her about the gender of his cousin by saying that it is a boy so she would not be upset or jealous. When she finds out that he lied to her, she stows away onto his train and kills his family. Before she goes to kill Yuka, he tackles her and yells at her to stop killing people and she flees. Kouta then repressed his memories about his father and sister's deaths and about Lucy. His repressed memories are triggered when Lucy uses her vectors to kill over a dozen soldiers in front of him. The reunion between Kouta and Lucy is vastly different. In the manga, Lucy apologizes and Kouta has her vow to never kill again, but Kazuma shoots at her and Kohta steps in the way to protect her. As Lucy's body begins to deteriorate, she uses her remaining powers to put Kouta's cells back together and save him. Fulfilling the promise he made to Lucy as children, Kouta kills her. However, Kouta goes to the place where they first met on the last day of the summer festival every year to wait for her, since she promised she would meet him again there. Ten years later, with the Diclonius menace eradicated, Kouta and Yuka are married and subsequently name their daughter Nyu. At the end of the manga, it's implied he meets Lucy/Kaede and Nyu's reincarnations. In the anime adaptation's alternate ending Lucy assures Kouta that she can do so in five years, but refuses to because that would mean his death. Kohta seems to understand that something truly horrible must have happened to shape her into a cold-blooded killer and, while still stating he is unable to forgive her, Kohta professes his love for Lucy. Lucy then kisses Kouta and they hug. Sometime later, Kohta along with the "family" of Kaede house, including Nana, settles down until the music box with Lucy's iconic theme stops, a silhouette resembling Lucy appears at the front door and the grandfather clock Nyu fixed starts ticking. A metaphor for the Lucy personality dying finally having processed her trauma and surpassing her intense bipolar disorder Nyu/Kaede comes back as herself not Guided by vengance or Misery. Category:Anime Love Interest Category:Male Love Interest Category:Childhood Friend Category:Married Category:Parents Category:Tragic Love Interest Category:Protagonist's Love Interest Category:Mature Category:Interspecies Love Interest Category:Muscular Love Interest Category:Love Triangle Category:Heartbroken Love Interest Category:Humans Category:Teenage Love Interest